Cast: Macaulay Culkin, Joe Pesci, Daniel Stern, Catherine O’Hara, John Heard
Credits: Director: Chris Columbus; Writer: John Hughes; 20th Century Fox; 1990
By the 1990s, Christmas movies of every sort had been depicted, so producer/writer John Hughes decided to combine several different plot elements to create a Christmas film for the current age. Take a child star with extreme cuteness (just like Shirley Temple was in Heidi), add two lovable criminals who are expert at pratfalls and physical humor (an outlaw Laurel and Hardy), add in the subplot of the misunderstood and feared neighbor who needs to be reconciled with his son, add the frivolity and hijinks that occur with an extended family of 15 taking a holiday trip to Paris and mix together all these elements in a frantic pace and we have Home Alone, the major Christmas movie of 1990.
As the movie opens, a household of 15 (mostly children) are preparing their long-awaited Christmas trip to Paris, as a strange-looking police officer happens to enter the house just to assure the owners that “it’s in safe hands” when leaving on the trip. In a matter of minutes, we are introduced to child megastar Macaulay Culkin as Kevin, the eight-year-old that everyone, from siblings to cousins to uncles to mother, cracks on. Kevin screams announcing, when he grows up, “I’m living alone,” which seems to make sense amidst a household of unlimited anxiety and anticipation. The kids warn Kevin of strange old neighbor Old Man Marley (Roberts Blossom) who supposedly, according to the neighborhood urban legend, murdered his family and half of the neighborhood back in 1958. Soon the pizza delivery man arrives, asking for $122.50, so the relatives pass the buck for a few minutes while the kids dig in to eat. Kevin, who is threatened with the promise that he will share a bed with Fuller, an avowed bed-wetter, overhears adults warn Fuller, “Go easy on the Pepsi,” as Fuller smiles and turns to Kevin. Big brother and chief tormentor Buzz says he ate Kevin’s plain cheese pizza, but he offers to barf it up for the kid. Kevin is pushed too far, so he runs and attacks Buzz, knocking over food and drink and causing a major mess. Kevin, as punishment, is sent up to the third floor bedroom by mom, who promptly forgets he’s up there. Kevin says his family “sucks,” but his mother (Catherine O’Hara) reminds her son, “You’d feel pretty sad if you woke up tomorrow morning and you didn’t have a family.” The angry Kevin declares, “No I wouldn’t. I hope I don’t see any of you jerks again.” Thus, the premise of the movie is laid out on a platter.
Next morning, a few contrivances occur-power lines fall creating a blackout which will disrupt all the neighborhood telephone lines for several days-causing the extended family to oversleep and then hurriedly prepare to board the two airport vans parked in front of the house. Coincidentally, a young neighbor boy from across the street just happens to come by as the family is about to leave, being included in the final “head count” before the vans depart. Of course, Kevin is alone upstairs sleeping.
Just as family members arrive at the airport terminal and board their plane in the nick of time, a sleepy-eyed and wild-haired Kevin awakens and calls for his family as he comes down from upstairs. Looking very solemn, Kevin declares, “I’ve made my family disappear,” but within seconds he shouts, “I’m free” and takes advantage of every kid’s wildest dreams-jumping up and down on the beds while eating junk food, running down the stairs at full throttle, riding a sled down the living room stairs to the outside and down the front steps, going through his brother’s private things and finding wondrous, taboo things such as firecrackers and copies of Playboy. For the first hour, unbridled happiness ensues. But soon Kevin yells out loud, “Guys, you better come out and stop me,” but no one does. Aboard the plane, now in flight, mother is irked that she forgot something, until in a panic she remembers and screams, “Kevin!!!” They arrive in Paris and phone home, but the phones are still out and the only choice is for the family to catch the fastest possible return flight to Chicago, which isn’t easy the day before Christmas.
Harry (Joe Pesci) and Marv (Daniel Stern), two pathetic cat burglars, have the entire neighborhood scoped out, down to the exact minute that departed travelers have their timers turnoutside Christmas lights on. Harry, whom we recognize as the policeman who entered Kevin’s home, wants to rob that house most of all, because of all the great material he saw that he can fence. However, when the duo sneaks around the back to try to break in, Kevin turns on some lights, frightening them off for the moment. In mortal fear, Kevin runs upstairs and hides under the bed. Quickly coming to his senses, Kevin declares, “Only a wimp would be hiding under the bed... I’m the man of the house.” He declares he’s not afraid anymore, but when he ventures outside, he sees the dreaded figure of Old Man Marley, armed with his shovel he uses to throw salt on the sidewalks, clearing the path for his neighbors. Kevin screams bloody murder, running back inside. When his parents, still in Paris, finally get the police to send a patrolman over to the house to check on Kevin, Kevin instead thinks the robbers are back, so he hides and the policeman leaves.
The robbers, very stupid but lovable saps, call themselves “the wet bandits” because Marv feels they need a trademark by which to be remembered, so when they finish heisting ahouse, Marv leaves the water running.
Kevin survives quite admirably, remembering to shower and use deodorant, though he cannot find his toothbrush. He goes to the store to buy supplies, is spooked once again by Marley, this time nursing a bloody, bandaged hand. He orders pizza for food, using clever editing from an old videotaped movie to provide adult dialogue to respond to questions asked by the delivery man. Even when going grocery shopping, he reminds the clerk that he has a coupon for one item purchased.
While the main family awaits a return flight to Chicago, mother decides she must act so she takes the first available flight to the U.S. and then tries to get a connecting flight to Chicago. She hooks up with a polka band who are renting a Budget truck to Milwaukee, but they offer to leave her off in Chicago, the entire band tooting away in the back of the truck, making a bad situation worse.
In one touching sequence, on Christmas Eve night, Kevin walks around the neighborhood after seeing a pretty pathetic Santa Claus, telling the man of the hour that he doesn’t want any presents, just his family to return. Walking home, he sees relatives gather as households hold Christmas Eve parties, hug and exchange gifts. Spotting a brightly decorated church, Kevin wanders in and sits in the empty pews as the church chorus rehearses. Sitting alone, on the other side, is Old Man Marley, who comes over, introduces himself and asks if he could sit next to Kevin. Marley recognizes Kevin as one of the children who lives next door to him. “Merry Christmas,” he wishes Kevin, turning to a young girl in the chorus about Kevin’s age. “She’s my granddaughter.” Marley explains he’s not welcome in his son’s home and hasn’t spoken to his son in years. Marley is afraid to phone his son, in fear that he would still be rejected. Kevin, in a wonderful sequence, advises Marley to try, “Give it a shot for your granddaughter.” Old man and young boy, both very much alone, smile at one another.
Of course, the movie is building up to the acclaimed slapstick sequence where Kevin defends his home from the easily 
outwitted outlaws who have at last figured out that Kevin is home alone (in one clever sequence, Kevin fools the saps by playing loud Christmas music, turning on all the lights, and creating silhouettes of people partying and walking around the living room, in reality dummies and cardboard posters on train tracks filling in for the actual missing people). “This is my house, I have to defend it,” Kevin declares, making preparations for his visitors. When Harry and Marv arrive, they are indeed in store for many surprises. First, the duo knocks on the door, but Kevin uses his air rifle to shoot Harry in the leg and Marv in the forehead. The walkways have been iced up, and the robbers continually fall on their backs and behinds as they attempt to enter the home. When Marv finally gets his balance on the cellar stairs, he finds his crowbar wasn’t necessary as the door is unlocked. However, as soon as he pulls on the light chain, a hot iron from above falls and brands his forehead. When Harry touches the front doorknob which is red-hot, he falls down the stairs with his hand sizzling in the snow. Marv, trying to mount the cellar steps, covered in oozing tar, steps in his bare feet on Kevin’s well-placed nail. Attempting to enter from another door, Harry slowly sticks his head through the entranceway activating a blow-torch which singes both his cap and his hair. Gradually working their way upstairs, Harry is now covered in feathers while Marv, still barefooted, steps onto broken Christmas tree ornaments. “I’m up here you morons,” Kevin chimes. By the time the robbers reach the first floor level, they are bombarded by swinging paint cans on rope, knocking both of them momentarily unconscious. Working even higher, the men trip over wires while running at breakneck speed. Kevin even throws a spider on the terrified Marv, which he throws on the flattened Harry. Telling the semi-conscious Harry to remain perfectly still, Marv uses his crowbar to try to squash the spider but misses and hits Harry directly in the gut. Kevin cleverly swings on his rope (using bicycle handles for balance) to get to his tree house, but when Harry and Marv attempt to hand-walk across, Kevin uses his clippers to cause the bozos to crash head first into a brick wall. Once Kevin is finally captured and hung on a door hook, hero Old Man Marley sneaks up behind the pair of thugs and whacks them over the head with his shovel.
The police tell the bungling burglars thanks for leaving the water running once again, an act that links this crime to all the others. As Marv proudly exclaims, “We’re the wet bandits,” Harry begins hitting his stupid friend with his cap. As they are driven off in the squad car, they look back and catch a smile from Kevin.
The next morning, Christmas morning, mother is reunited with Kevin, the rest of the family arriving soon afterwards. Even brother Buzz is kind: “It’s cool that you didn’t burn downthe house!” Everyone is happy to see Kevin, who amazes his family with his shopping spree antics whereby he bought much-needed items such as milk, eggs and fabric softener. Glancing outside in the snow, Kevin sees Mr. Marley reconciling with his son, everyone hugging and slowly walking inside. Seeing the smile on Kevin’s face, the old man smiles and waves.
Home Alone, as concocted by the John Hughes marketability production machine, and crisply directed by Chris Columbus, is not great art, but it is competent Hollywood movie-making in the best sense. It focuses upon a charismatic child star who plays terrified and, in a change of pace, terrifier quite adeptly. The two goons (an energized Joe Pesci and Daniel Stern, whose physical interaction and reaction to one another is priceless) complement Culkin. What could have become the horror film of the 1990s-Home Invasion-quickly becomes ridiculous fun, straight out of the annals of Laurel and Hardy. The Three Stooges live in this demented slapstick farce based upon burning heads, crowbars to the stomach and hot irons on the face. The violence and threats are so over-the-top that no one could really get outraged, and besides, Hughes/Columbus have the tugging-the-heartstrings subplot whereby the so-called neighborhood serial killer turns out to be a kind, lonely man who only wishes to find the courage to phone his son. Home Alone is perhaps too manipulative and contrived, but ultimately, the only thing that matters is that the movie works.
Home Alone 2: Lost in New York
Cast: Macaulay Culkin, Joe Pesci, Daniel Stern, Catherine O’Hara, John Heard
Credits: Director: Chris Columbus; Writer: John Hughes; 20th Century Fox; 1992
In 1992 John Hughes would again revive the Home Alone characters in Home Alone 2: Lost in New York. As in the first film, young Kevin is separated from his family, this time he is alone in New York City during the Christmas holidays. Bumbling crooks Harry and Marv have escaped from jail and guess what-they’re in New York too! Kevin makes friends with a homeless woman (Brenda Fricker), makes the life of a hotel manager (Tim Curry) miserable, and makes mincemeat out of poor old Harry and Marv. Roger Ebert notes: “I have a feeling that Home Alone 2: Lost in New York is going to be an enormous box office success, but include me out. I didn’t much like the first film, and I don’t much like this one,with its sadistic little hero who mercilessly hammers a couple of slow-learning crooks. Nor did I enjoy the shameless attempt to leaven the mayhem by including a preachy subplot about the Pigeon Lady of Central Park. Call me hardhearted, call me cynical, but please don’t call me if they make Home Alone 3.”
Home Alone 4
Cast: Mike Weinberg, French Stewart, Jason Beghe, Joanna Going
Credits: Director: Rod Daniel; Writers: Debra Frank, Steven L. Hayes; Based on Characters Created by John Hughes; Television, 2002
Kevin’s parents have divorced (probably because of the bratty kids) and Kevin decides to spend Christmas with his father at the home of his rich new girlfriend. Of course the robbers turn up to rob the house.Home for Christmas
Cast: Mickey Rooney, Simon Richards, Lesley Kelly, Chantellese Kent
Credits: Producers: Waldemar Blokovski and Beverly Shenken; Director: Peter McCubbin; Writers: Peter Ferri and Peter McCubbin; New World Pictures; 1990
“I’ve heard it said that Christmas is a time for children. A time I’m told, for magic. But who’s to say. Is it magic or coincidence? Is it chance or something else? And sometimes, once in a long while, it is a time not just for children but for everyone. I remember a Christmas not long ago just like that when something wonderful happened.”-Opening narration of Home for Christmas
Mickey Rooney stars as a homeless man who is taken in by a family to work off a car phone he has stolen from Reg’s (Simon Richard) car. Daughter Mandy (Chantel-lese Kent) decides Rooney is the perfect grandfather. He works at their home and even Reg is starting to melt a little when Rooney spies a picture on the mantel. It is Reg’s mother, Rooney’s long-dead wife. He leaves while the family is attending a neighbor’s Christmas party, but Mandy and her brother Justin (Noah Plener) follow him. He saves them from a mugger and takes the children home. Reg is so angry that he orders him from the house never to return. Rooney goes back to his homeless friends, who are his only family, and tells them how Reg’s mother was from a wealthy family who forced her to have their marriage annulled. He never knew about Reg. One of the homeless goes to see Reg, who has tears in his eyes when he learns he really has a father.He enlists Rooney’s homeless friends to help find him. The father and son meet in a snow-covered park where they lay their differences to rest.
Home for the Holidays
Cast: Eleanor Parker, Walter Brennan, Julie Harris, Jessica Walter, Jill Haworth, Sally Field
Credits: Producer: Aaron Spelling; Director: John Llewellyn Moxey; Writer: Joseph Stefano; ABC Television; 1972
Eleanor Parker uses the holidays to systematically eliminate her annoying family.
Home of Angels
Cast: Sherman Hemsley, Lance Robinson, Craig Sechler, Abe Vigoda
Credits: Producer: James Oliva; Director: Nick Stagliano; Writer: James Oliva; Cloverlay Productions; 1994
A young boy rescues his Alzheimer-afflicted grandfather (Vigoda) from a nursing home so he can spend the holiday with the family.
The Homecoming: A Christmas Story
Cast: Richard Thomas, Patricia Neal, Edgar Bergan, Ellen Corby, Cleavon Little
Credits: Producer: Robert L. Jacks; Director: Fielder Cook; Writer: Earl Hamner, Jr.; Lorimar; 1971
This made-for-television film was the prelude to the popular Waltons series. Regular viewers will find the different actors portraying the familiar family a little disconcerting. It is Christmas Eve and the family is preparing for the arrival of John, who has been working 50 miles away. During the Depression, the family living in the Blue Ridge Mountains has little money. The children fight and bicker as siblings are wont to do and mother worriedly waits for the arrival of her husband. A news report announces a bus has overturned and one passenger is dead. She sends John Boy out to find his father but, although he tries his best, things are not going his way. He arrives back home alone.Finally John makes it home and the family members are delighted with the presents he has brought home, although his story of wrestling the gifts from a frightened Santa Claus may bother younger children. Another Christmas special featuring the Walton family was made in 1978 called The Waltons: The Children’s Carol.
The Honeymooners “’Twas the Night Before Christmas”
One of the defining programs of early television, without doubt, is Jackie Gleason’s The Honeymooners, a comedic masterpiece that sang the praises of the American working-class people. The interchange between Gleason and Art Carney (as best pal Ed Norton) lies at the heart of the series’ success. Also Ralph’s sad-sack relationship with wife Alice (Audrey Meadows) is quite complex. Externally Ralph is all bluster, rants and raves, always threatening to send his wife to the moon with just one punch, but internally, Ralph loves Alice to death and wouldn’t lift a finger to ever harm her. She realizes that (definitely wearing the pants in that family) but gives Ralph enough elbow room to allow him to assert his mythicalsuperiority in his own mind and among his male friends. Gleason’s acting is masterful: He is wizard of verbal humor, is quite adept at physical humor-even with his bulk-and he can bring a tear to the eye, when making a fool out of himself and then admitting he was wrong, and can ask for forgiveness. So much humanity and soul exists within the person of Ralph that his performance alone catapults the show to classic status, but with his gifted cast of supporting players, the show goes even further.
Christmas is the ideal setting for The Honeymooners, working folks who barely have enough money to buy a Christmas present, but people who reverently uphold the idea of what Christmas means and hold it dearly in their hearts. The episode begins with both Alice and Ralph sneaking into the kitchen of their apartment, each clutching a wrapped Christmas present for the other spouse, looking to find a hiding place for the gift until Christmas morning tomorrow. Interestingly, each character goes to exactly the same hiding places (a drawer in the cabinet, the oven) before settling on underneath the ice box behind a drainage pan.
Trixie (Jane Randolph) sneaks down to tell Alice that Ed already gave her his Christmas present, an orange juice squeezer in the shape of Napoleon whereby the juice flows out of his ear. Not exactly the most romantic present, but men will be men. But soon Alice comes upon Ralph hiding her present, telling him that’s where she hid his. Ralph begs to exchange presents tonight, but when Alice puts her foot down, Ralph calms down, says he’s no kid and can wait. However, pretending to run out to Trixie’s apartment, Alice in fact hides near the door, and after the door is slammed, Ralph runs out pulling the package from under the ice box. But as he rises, Alice is there to confront him. Alice thinks she has made the point that she has to hide his present again, that she cannot trust him to leave it alone before Christmas morning. But in a guilty pout Ralph shouts, “You’re the one not to be trusted... you said you were going out!” Alice goes off and hides the package. She returns and tells Ralph that she trusts him and tells him exactly where the present has been hidden, as she finally leaves to see Trixie. As soon as she is gone, Ralph charges toward the back room, and within seconds, the audience hears the snap of a mouse trap and a loud yell of pain, as Ralph reappears in the kitchen with the trap curled around his fingers.
Soon Ed Norton appears, ready to exchange presents with Ralph. Looking at each box and noting the similarity in shape, Ralph concludes they each bought one another a tie. Norton looks perplexed and says, no, he bought Ralph spats, something for the man who has everything. At first becoming angry over such a useless present, Ralph cools down and says, “I know it came from your heart!” To which Norton deadpans, “No, it came from the fat man’s shop!”
After getting his hand caught in the mouse trap one more time, Ralph retrieves his present to Alice, opens and shows it to Norton: 
a hair pin box made of 2,000 matchsticks. Both men are impressed and even more so when Ralph tells Norton that the salesman said this box is one of a kind and came from the home of the Emperor of Japan. Being so excited, and egged on by Norton, Ralph decides to give it to Alice tonight, but he is interrupted by the sudden appearance of a neighbor, Mrs. Stevens, who is leaving to visit her sister so she wishes to exchange presents with Alice tonight. Alice gives her a kitchen thermometer, but Stevens gives Alice the exact same one-of-a-kind hair pin box that Ralph purchased for Alice. Stevens says she feels embarrassed giving her the box after the wonderful present that Alice gave her and tells Alice she purchased the box from a little novelty shop down near the subway station.
Creating the pathos that Gleason is so wonderful at generating, Ralph feels both cheated and embarrassed by his own greed. He tells Norton he saved up $22, but instead of spending it on his wife, he went out and bought the bowling ball he wanted for some time. Ralph could kick himself in the head for not using that money to buy Alice a special gift. However, Uncle Leo quickly stops by the apartment, receiving a wrapped present from Alice and Ralph, and leaving a $25 gift certificate to Watson’s Department Store for them. Stating he can replace the money next week, Ralph hurriedly leaves to buy his wife a present, but she comes in just as he is leaving. “You know who I met downstairs,” Alice merrily asks. His smile quickly turning into a frown, Ralph says, yes I know, and turns over the gift certificate to Alice telling her this is what Uncle Leo left. “Uncle Leo was here?” Alice exclaims, stating she was talking about one of the neighborhood boys who just returned on leave from the service.
In desperation Ralph decides to hock his bowling ball for $10-$15 dollars and buy Alice a nice gift, and on Christmas morning he cannot even wait to eat his eggs before exchanging presents. Alice wants Ralph to open his present first, and in the best tradition of O. Henry’s “Gift of the Magi,” Ralph’s jaw drops when he sees Alice got him a bowling ball bag. Insisting Ralph get his bowling ball to make sure it will fit in the bag, Ralph stutters out in embarrassment he cannot, and then tells her the story about hocking the ball. Smiling at the big lug, Alice opens his present, an orange juice squeezer in the form of Napoleon, and tells him it’s the best present she ever received. The obvious love that exists between Alice and Ralph is amplified by Ralph’s closing monologue: “Christmas is about the best time of the whole year. You walk down the streets even weeks before Christmas comes, and there’s lights hanging up... sometimes there’s snow. And people hustling some place. But they don’t hustle around Christmas time like they usually do. They’re a little more friendly, especially when it gets close to Christmas time... boy, what a pleasure it is to think that you got some place to go to, and that the place you’re going to has somebody in it that you really love... someone you’re nuts about... Merry Christmas,” and the two kiss for an extended time, ending the show before the final curtain call.
A House Without a Christmas Tree
Cast: Jason Robards, Mildred Natwick, Lisa Lucas
Credits: Producer: Allen Shayne; Director: Paul Bogart; CBS; 1972
This CBS television production is the story of Addie (Lucas) and her unhappy father (Robards) who live with his mother (Natwick) since he was widowed. He wants nothing in the house that reminds him of his deceased wife, including Addie. During Christmas of 1946 he comes to terms with himself and brings home the Christmas tree Addie so longs for. Touching television film with fine acting. Robards is especially memorable as the strong man who can’t face his emotions.
How the Grinch Stole Christmas
Cast: (voices) Boris Karloff, Thurl Ravenscroft
Credits: Director: Chuck Jones; Writer: Dr. Seuss; MGM; 1966
Like A Charlie Brown Christmas, How the Grinch Stole Christmas is a perennial holiday favorite, one never missed in our house during December. I’m not sure if it is one of our most beloved holiday specials because Boris Karloff provided the voice of the Grinch or, for its message that it’s the love of family and friends that is the true gift of Christmas. But however you look at it, when we hear that distinctive voice relate the tale of the Grinch, his silly little dog and wee Cindy-Lou Who, well we just grin with glee.
How the Grinch Stole Christmas
Cast: Jim Carrey, Taylor Momsen, Jeffrey Tambor, Christine Baranski
Credits: Director: Ron Howard; Writers: Jeffrey Price, Peter S. Seaman; Based on the Dr. Seuss Book; MCA, 2000
He puts the mean in green! Big-budget treatment of the classic holiday tale stars Jim Carrey in the title role. Those of us who are devout fans of the original didn’t care for the remake, but kids loved it. Critic Roger Ebert noted: “This is a movie that devotes enormous resources to the mistaken belief that children and their parents want to see a dank, eerie, weird movie about a sour creature who lives on top of a mountain of garbage, scares children, is mean to his dog, and steals everyone’s Christmas presents. Yes, there’s a happy ending, and even a saintly little girl who believes the Grinch may not be all bad, but there’s not much happiness before the ending, and the little girl is more of a plot device than a character.”
How to Marry a Billionaire: A Christmas Tale
Cast: John Stamos, Joshua Malina, Shemar Moore, Gabrielle Anwar, Rhea Perlman
Credits: Director: Rod Daniel; Writers: Steven Peterman, Gary Dontzig
In a reversal of How to Marry a Millionaire, three broke guys house sit a mansion and pretend to be rich to catch a wealthy wife. You probably shouldn’t waste your time, just watch the original.